International
Iran promises to punish Israel for destroying its consulate in Syria and killing a general
Tehran promised on Monday a harsh response against Israel for bombing and destroying its consulate in Damascus, where the Iranian ambassador resided, who came out unharmed, but who caused at least eight deaths, including an important brigade general of the Revolutionary Guard.
In one of the hardest blows to Iran in recent years in Syria, Iran’s ambassador to this country, Hossein Akbari, said on Iranian state television from Damascus that “the Zionist regime (Israel) acts against international laws, so he will receive a harsh response from us.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its right to take countermeasures, and will decide on the type of reaction and punishment of the aggressor,” said, for his part, the spokesman of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Naser Kanani.
The Syrian authorities accused the “Israeli enemy” of launching a bombing “around 5:00 p.m. today (14.00 GMT),” from the Golan Heights occupied by Israel against the “Iranian consulate building in Damascus,” according to an unidentified military source, which pointed out that the air defenses shot down “some” of the launched missiles.
Akbari witnessed from the embassy window of the attack on the consulate, which, according to him, was carried out with F-35 fighters that fired six missiles at Iranian facilities.
So far, Israel has not claimed this action, as is usual in its attacks on the Syrian territory.
On the battlefield, the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the entire Strip, has been completely out of service after two weeks of military operation by the Israeli Army, which ended this morning.
“The destruction of the complex makes it impossible to resume work and the hospital has been completely out of service,” the director of Shifa, Marwan Abu Saada, told the media.
For its part, the Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip denounced on Monday that, after the departure of Israeli troops from the hospital, they have found corpses with signs of having been executed, others burned and also in a state of decomposition.
“Most of the bodies are decomposing and we reach bodies that are skeletons burned inside the medical complex,” Civil Defense spokesman Mahmud Busal said in a statement.
“It is difficult to count the number of martyrs, since the occupation raised the roads and buried the bodies in and near the Shifa complex,” Busal said.
According to the Civil Defense, there are dozens of bodies in the residential apartments in the vicinity of the medical complex for “the massacres committed by the occupation.”
The Israeli troops, who launched the operation on Shifa on March 18, claim to have killed about 200 alleged militiamen and identified 500 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, after interrogating about 800 suspects.
The Army insists that its military operations have not been directed against “patients, health personnel or medical equipment,” although the Gazaz Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, yesterday denounced that this incursion of the troops has left at least 400 dead throughout the area and the destruction of more than a thousand houses.
For Israel, this is one of the most “success” operations they have carried out since the beginning of the war, on October 7, due to the high number of alleged “terrorists” they have managed to capture in the hospital, where they assure that the militias of the Strip were regrouping.
Meanwhile, in Israel, a drone attack hit a building near the port of Eilat, in the south of the country, without injuries being reported.
According to the Israeli Army, the aggression came “from the east,” apparently from Iraq.
“After the sirens that sounded in the city of Eilat and in the Hevel Eilot area over an infiltration of hostile planes, the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces identified a suspicious air target that crossed from the east to Israeli territory,” said a military statement.
“The target fell in the area of the Gulf of Eilat. No injuries were reported and there was minor damage to a building,” he added.
The reference to the projectile coincides with the claim, this morning, by the Islamic Resistance of Iraq of an attack “towards our occupied lands in solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza.”
Israeli media suggest that the target of the attack would be the frigate Saar 6, moored in the port of Eilat, since the impact occurred in a nearby building.
Eilat has been the target of launching several ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in parallel to the war, but most of them came from the Houthis of Yemen, a group related to Iran.
International
Trump orders immediate U.S. nuclear testing, ending 30-year moratorium
U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to begin “immediate” testing of the country’s nuclear arsenal could, if carried out, end the nuclear testing moratorium that the United States has maintained for over 30 years.
The announcement follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear maneuvers on October 22 from the Kremlin, which involved land, sea, and air exercises and the launch of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 12,000 kilometers.
In 1992, the U.S. Senate approved a temporary suspension of nuclear tests in August, followed by the House of Representatives in September, initially for nine months, with the goal of ending all U.S. atomic testing by September 1996.
Although then-President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, and his successor Bill Clinton, a Democrat, threatened to veto the measure, the moratorium has remained in place ever since.
The decision came after the fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and a political climate in which many U.S. leaders and a significant portion of public opinion believed that the country should lead global denuclearization efforts. Technological advances have also allowed the United States to verify the reliability of its nuclear arsenal without conducting atomic explosions.
From World War II until 1992, the United States conducted over a thousand nuclear tests. Until 1963, these tests were atmospheric, after which only underground tests were performed.
Although the U.S. has not conducted nuclear detonations since September 1992, it has carried out several dozen subcritical experiments. These do not trigger chain nuclear reactions or produce atomic yield but are designed to verify the safety and effectiveness of the nuclear arsenal and remain within the limits established by the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
International
Brazilian president defends coordinated anti-drug operations after deadly Rio raid
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended on Wednesday the integration of the country’s various police forces into an anti-drug strategy that avoids civilian casualties, commenting on Tuesday’s police operation in Rio de Janeiro that left 121 dead—the deadliest in Brazil’s history.
“We need coordinated efforts that strike at the backbone of drug trafficking without putting police, children, and innocent families at risk,” the progressive leader wrote on social media.
Lula, along with several of his ministers, emphasized that organized crime is not defeated through violent confrontations in the favelas, but by measures that decapitalize these groups and reduce their financial power.
“That was exactly what we did in August during the largest operation against organized crime in the country’s history, targeting the financial core of a major organization involved in drug trafficking, fuel adulteration, and money laundering,” he stated, referring to a recent operation against the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), a major national criminal group.
Lula stressed that Brazil cannot allow organized crime to continue destroying families, oppressing citizens, and spreading drugs and violence across cities.
He added that, in a federal country like Brazil, where public security is the responsibility of regional governments, it is necessary to unify the country’s police forces.
The head of state affirmed that integrating regional and national police forces to combat organized crime will be possible with the approval of a public security bill that the government has submitted to Congress.
International
US Deputy Secretary criticizes Mexico’s call to end Cuba trade embargo at UN
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau reacted on Wednesday against Mexico’s request at the United Nations to lift the trade embargo on Cuba.
Landau expressed on X that he felt “sad” as a “friend of Mexico” after Mexico’s ambassador to the UN, Héctor Vasconcelos, reiterated solidarity with Cuba and stressed the “urgent need to end the trade embargo.”
“Let’s base ourselves on reality and not fantasies. There is no trade embargo on Cuba (…) Cuba freely receives goods and visitors from many countries,” Landau wrote.
The reaction from the State Department official came after the Mexican delegation urgently requested the removal of sanctions against Cuba at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where a majority of 165 countries voted in favor of ending the embargo imposed on the island since 1960.
Seven countries voted against the proposal, and twelve abstained. The United States, Israel, Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, and Ukraine were among those opposing the measure, but the overwhelming support left the U.S. and its allies in the minority.
Trump orders immediate U.S. nuclear testing, ending 30-year moratorium
Brazilian president defends coordinated anti-drug operations after deadly Rio raid
US Deputy Secretary criticizes Mexico’s call to end Cuba trade embargo at UN
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